Meal planning, goal setting

Apologies: it all went a bit quiet there.

Excuses time: I've been a little under the weather. So far this year I have had a poorly paw (TM Lesley) and a poorly tooth and now I am suffering with a poorly gallbladder. I say that I'm suffering - I tend to think that D has the worst of it since I've been in a foul mood and my appetite has been a bit all over the place which has impacted on our usual, stringent, food planning. The empty pad on the fridge has been rebuking me all week long. Also - busy with work, blah, blah, blah. I used to get more opportunities to write blog posts at lunchtime.

Anyway, the gallbladder will hopefully be whipped out at some point and in the meantime I need to man up. Firstly - a weight loss update. 1.2 lbs off this week which isn't bad considering that while I started the week eating very little (which helped with fast days), by the end I wanted to gnaw my own arm off. The goal setting of the title refers to the fact that I'd really, really like to hit the mini goal of two stone off by the end of April. It's definitely doable, but I need to keep focused and maybe tighten up a little bit on treats sneaking in to non-fast days.

So what are we up to this week? Well, our cookbook inspiration is being provided by the man himself Yotam Ottolenghi. We are hitting up his "Plenty More" tome for ideas; regular readers may well have heard me rave about "Plenty" in the past so I have high hopes for this. We're fasting Monday and Thursday, we're out for supper on Wednesday and D is out with friends on Friday so I'll probably have beans on toast (with cheese if I'm feeling particularly racy). Not much left to plan, which is a shame because there are loads of dishes in this book that I want to try...

Tuesday: tagliatelle with lemon and walnuts

Saturday: "mezze": dakos, grilled lettuce with farro and lemon, squash with chilli yoghurt and coriander sauce

Sunday: aubergine cheesecake

YUM! Have a fabulous week all - I'm going to occupy myself with planning the bribe (/reward) that I will deserve if I can hit my entirely arbitrary goal.